Dorian Thompson-Robinson stands in way of USC QB Jaxson Dart transferring to UCLA

Dorian Thompson-Robinson has announced that he will be returning to the UCLA Bruin football program, and that means that USC QB Jaxson Dart may not be on his way to Westwood.

UCLA seemed like one of the most realistic options for Dart as they were the next-most contending school for Dart when he was being recruited out of high school. Now, the QB coming off of his third year as a full-time starter for the Bruins is back, which could very well sway Dart from taking his talents across town.

It's worth pointing out that Dart absolutely could compete with DTR and win the job, as Thompson-Robinson is a wildly inaccurate quarterback. He owns an awful 60.7 completion percentage in his time at UCLA, and after seemingly making improvements in his accuracy in 2020 (65.2%), he still wasn't fixed as that placed just 30th in the nation. He proved that he is still the off-target passer he's always been in 2021 when he recorded an abysmal 62% completion percentage (ranking 61st in the country).

Still, DTR has been starting there full-time for three years now, he's been there each year UCLA Head Coach Chip Kelly's been there, and he knows the offense. While Dart fits the offense due to his own athletic ability, UCLA already has chemistry with Thompson-Robinson.

USC QB Jaxson Dart has to be SIGNIFICANTLY better than Dorian Thompson-Robinson to start at UCLA.

Jaxson Dart showed plenty of flashes for USC football this year, and I like his prospects of being better than Dorian Thompson-Robinson when his career is all said and done. Dart, however, would have to be significantly better than DTR in camp to be able to take his starting spot due to that chemistry and familiarity that they currently have with Thompson-Robinson.

Dart, who was just in his first year in college was already more accurate than DTR; posting a 61.9 completion percentage (1.2 points higher than DTR's career average). He did have an 0.1% less completion percentage under DTR's for this year, but I'm not going to ignore DTR's four years of disappointing history concerning his accuracy because he had an 0.1% higher completion percentage than Dart just for this season.

I'd like to see Dart with any sort of functioning offense. Despite Kelly's offense being a shell of what it was back at Oregon, it was still much better than whatever Graham Harrell was doing last year at SC. I'd also like to see Dart with a real chance at consistent snaps before I decide he can't compete and win a job against DTR, as he was moved in and out of a random two-QB system that had no basis to how it was gone about.

Besides, even in that mess, Dart arguably outperformed Kedon Slovis, who posted an excellent 69.9% completion rate and threw for 301.3 yards per game before the joke of an offense Harrell ran in 2021. Even if I include DTR's best year as a QB (2021), DTR has thrown for just 209.5 yards per game. Slovis was significantly better than DTR when there was even a somewhat competent offense for him to run.

And Dart was the QB USC seemingly chose to roll with for this year over Slovis. So yes, Dart could win the job vs. DTR. Heck, he literally averaged more yards per game than DTR this year despite only playing two full games out of his six.

That being said, he'll have to blow DTR out the water if he wants to start over him this season, as the Bruins probably want to keep trying to develop the guy they recruited.